McCain: You could make the argument that Obama’s buying the election
posted at 8:00 pm on October 19, 2008 by Allahpundit
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$150 million in September, the equivalent of a Ron Paul “money bomb” every single day of the month (better than equivalent, actually). Don’t be surprised if he cracks $200 million in October, meaning he’ll have raised fully four times as much in the final two months as McCain got from public financing. Just in case you were wondering how he can afford a half-hour commercial in primetime on three of the four major networks.
Patrick Ruffini, atoning for an epic mistake last month in calling Obama’s decision to opt out an “epic mistake,” has a shrewd analysis of what it means. Maverick’s sounding the alarm here about public financing, but he’s too late: The Internet’s killed it and it’ll stay dead unless and until Congress raises the cap considerably from the current limit of $84 million. As for the election:
[W]hat does Obama do with the extra money? A three-to-one ad ratio in a given state is worth about a point in the polls. But that’s in states with at least a decent baseline of Republican advertising. What’s it worth in states where McCain can’t advertise at all, like North Dakota or Georgia? 3 or 4 points? Does Obama move into states at the fringes of the target map to 1) heighten the sense of panic in the GOP? and 2) go for 400 EVs? Can he legally bail out the committees to go for 270 in the House and 60 in the Senate?
Either way, this is going to be the political equivalent of Sherman’s March.
As for candidates buying elections, the media’s double standards have become so blatant that they’re almost not worth pointing out anymore. But here’s Mark Halperin dealing a little McCain-esque straight talk to Howard Kurtz, in case you need help connecting the dots.
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Yep. I fight that kind of stuff all the time… for the last ten years, especially. I get SO sick of the meme of:
That one really sets me off.
I say to them: “Yeah, but would yo LIKE to be rich? If you do, you better vote Republican, because democrat policies will make it so much harder to get there.” then go on to give specifics that relate to their personal career goals.
Usually it makes them angry, but some times I can tell that they go off thinking about it a lot more than they did before.
LegendHasIt on October 19, 2008 at 11:40 PM
Not my mind, anyway. However, something strange is happening, here in California, this year. I drove to LA yestrday, and back, to/from Hollywood (from San Diego), and hardly any stickers are displayed on cars this time, for neither of the candidates. How to explain?
Entelechy on October 19, 2008 at 11:52 PM
LegendHaslt:
I say to them You are richer than me. Because it is usually true.
Terrye on October 19, 2008 at 11:54 PM
This video is a few minutes long, but it’s the clearest synopsis (aside from Hannity) I’ve seen so far of the danger of Obamanation:
http://www.usawakeup.org/USSA.htm
Send this link on to anybody out there that:
[a] doesn’t think this election is important
[b] is STILL “on the fence” or undecided
[c] has been suckered into the Hopey/Changey propaganda
[d] is disillusioned into thinking McCain is a Bush 3rd-term
[e] thinks they’ll be making a statement by voting 3rd party
Send it to everyone in your address book.
ErinF on October 19, 2008 at 11:57 PM
$150 million in September?
There is no way that kind of money is clean.
CP on October 19, 2008 at 11:59 PM
Has Obama done anything clean and above-board during this campaign?
Rusty Bill on October 20, 2008 at 12:12 AM
Hell yes! He’s as much as admitted he’s black.
trailboss on October 20, 2008 at 12:14 AM
Well, I don’t know.. after all, I’m just sort of a hillbilly-cowboy-hermit, not an urbane urban sophisticate, but I would guess that there are two major, but distinctly separate components to that.
1: The average ‘rational’ members of the two major parties aren’t really happy with the person that their party apparatchiks selected for them, so aren’t as enthusiastic about littering their cars and yards with stickers and signs as they would with better candidates.
2: Fear of vandalism, as several have mentioned lately.
————
Back in October 2004, over night, on one night, in my town, EVERY Republican candidate’s sign in every major (and several minor rights of way, and even a lot of them off of private property) completely ‘magically’ disappeared.
(I blamed it loudly and publicly on the Kerry Campaign, but after the election, the chairman of the County GOP told me ’sub rosa’ that the culprit was the Democrat candidate (and his immediate cadre of campaign workers) for the US House of Representatives for our district.
So, maybe this time BOTH parties are doing that, as well as the aforementioned.
——————-
I always figured if I ran for public office, my first campaign promise would be that I wouldn’t litter the countryside with signs with my name on them. If I couldn’t win based on issues and (my sterling personality ;-), I wouldn’t want to win.
LegendHasIt on October 20, 2008 at 12:19 AM
McCain has his goofy attempts at populism that Obama is so much better at.
He would be far better off if he would explain economic conservatism like Reagan did.
As in, tax-cuts-for-the-rich (Obama’s mantra) are actually good for the rest of us.
jgapinoy on October 20, 2008 at 12:45 AM
How is it that the left can spend their days delightfully claiming we are in a financial meltdown and severe recession while their base spends all of its time wandering from rally to rally (instead of standing in bread lines or working), and sends Obama untold amounts of money. The two things together cannot be true.
Connie on October 20, 2008 at 12:48 AM
Indeed, you “hillbilly-cowboy-hermit, not an urbane urban sophisticate”. Thanks for the smiles :) I believed all of it, heh.
Entelechy on October 20, 2008 at 1:02 AM
Ah, you just tolerate me because I can occasionally work two words like aparatchik and sub-rosa into a single post. ;-)
LegendHasIt on October 20, 2008 at 1:09 AM
He can’t even get that right. He’s half black.
Ronnie on October 20, 2008 at 1:13 AM
Dear Legend, I actually “tolerate” you because you are a sophisticated “hillbilly-cowboy-hermit” :)
Entelechy on October 20, 2008 at 1:16 AM
Obama’s not buying the election. Soros, and his, are.
Entelechy on October 20, 2008 at 1:21 AM
Soros is a dangerous SOB! Why is it that no one is questioning this? Washington or the FBI? They know for a fact that a lot of the money cannot be traced. Oh, it is because if they do. Then they are racists. And he isn’t even all black. Not even half black.
sheebe on October 20, 2008 at 1:38 AM
Coherence is your friend.
Or should be.
hillbillyjim on October 20, 2008 at 1:48 AM
The media overload will backfire. Some people will get brainwashed, sure, but Americans like to think we can’t get fooled by hype. This stuff is like real-world spamming.
Jim Treacher on October 20, 2008 at 2:01 AM
This cuts both ways- the Democrats will regret not following McCain’s lead when someone like Sarah Palin starts her campaign. By then, many of her fellow church lady followers will even have internet access.
bayam on October 20, 2008 at 2:18 AM
It never changed my mind… But it did lift my spirits. I live in San Diego and every time I see a McCain/Palin sign I get a little warm and fuzzy. It’s makes the guy in the Obama car driving threw parking lots telling people to Vote for Obama over a loudspeaker a little more bearable.
The few McCain/Palin signs in San Diego let me forget that my own brother in Virginia (a state that actually matters) has an Obama sign in his yard… sad but true…
twoarmman on October 20, 2008 at 2:44 AM
Back in the summer, Soros bought $811 million of Petrobras when the price was around $50. Today, that price is around $25, so he needs to own more than just the Democrat party… he’s down over $400 million on that investment, so he needs to be sure he has a lock on no drilling here…. ever. I guess that campaign finance reform stuff isn’t working out so well….
CC – BHO: “my Muslim faith”
CapedConservative on October 20, 2008 at 2:48 AM
Whatabout if Obama decides to go with public financing after all and donates all of his gargantuan slush funds to solving the Fannie Freddie problem?
That would be nice.
uptight on October 20, 2008 at 4:39 AM
Not to mention the Neuro-Linguistic Programming and “conversational” hypnosis?
(interesting PDF link found @ Doug Ross’)
rhodeymark on October 20, 2008 at 5:38 AM
And before everyone dismisses the above link as crackpot, know this – I sold encyclopedias before the Internet age, and we were taught these techniques to overcome objections from the reluctant ones.
rhodeymark on October 20, 2008 at 5:45 AM
Wake up everyone. Obama could not have raised $150 million in September from the average American. We are suppose to be in an economic crisis. Yet, all that money flows to Obama: Soros money, foreign donor money, who knows what else.
Obama is a radical socialist who is buying the election. American democracy is in peril.
Phil Byler on October 20, 2008 at 6:27 AM
jgapinoy:
I don’t think it is as simple as explaining the crisis. The socalled crisis is more complicated than that. Bush has cut taxes and for years the economy did pretty good, but the tax issue alone did not help him that much.
And while I like Palin and think the base responds to her, ABC headlines swear she will backfire. They say Obama is seen as the more optimistic.
My ass, if there is one thing I would not call Obama, it is optimistic. He is fear mongering.
But that is the problem, there are so many messages out there that people just do not know what to believe.
Terrye on October 20, 2008 at 7:16 AM
Obama is a liar. And he will be exposed as a liar. He has built a card house and it will fall. He constantly remains in a defensive position to ward off all truthful evidence that he is nothing more than a thug who has risen to power with the help of other lowlifes like himself.
His book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, is simply another version of Mein Kaump.
mindhacker on October 20, 2008 at 7:33 AM
I think you meant Mein Kampf. Mein Kaump was a later publication in which Hitler recounted his summers as a counselor at Kaump Krusty.
ManlyRash on October 20, 2008 at 7:45 AM
McCain needs to hammer at this “Buying the Election” day and night- There is NO way this money came from “average voters”. Most people are trying to figure out how to live on what they have left- not how to keep stuffing the pockets of Barry and his high livin’ wife.
I totally think McCain needs a half hour informercial like Barry’s helping himself to; He could use the entire time to list the myriad of reasons that Barry is scary- If you don’t care about how he got to where he is today, you better damn care what he’s going to do in the future. He also needs to impress upon people the huge manipulations that have been foisted upon them. Obama’s campaign has been slick as hell- ask yourself when the last time you heard Michelle Obama speak was. They know she’s got less favorables than Hillary had! (quite the achievement)
anniekc on October 20, 2008 at 7:51 AM
I remember Soros spending all that money in an effort to defeat W… how’d that work out for him? About as well as campaign finance reform is working out for McCain….
Soros put $811 million he put into Petrobras last summer at $50 a share and it’s now trading around $25… no wonder Mr. Good Will is wearing out Mr. Soros’ credit card giving to Obama. If Obama win’s, that line from the SNL video reflecting him as “Owner, Democrat Party” can be changed to “Owner, United States Government”
CC – BHO: “my Muslim faith”
CapedConservative on October 20, 2008 at 7:58 AM
It has been bought!
I certainly hope all the liberals, Marxists, socialists and communists enjoy the purchase of their hopelessly divided country. Now, the only questions are: Will it be destroyed by fiery revolution, or, will it simply rot from the core until i finally disappears?
rplat on October 20, 2008 at 8:03 AM
Nobody cares enough to actually have a revolution, and the boys in blue have turned into stormtroopers in black. They’d quash us like bugs. The Patriot Act will enable Obama to have revolutionaries and dissenters arrested as terrorists.
Best just to turn up American Idol a little louder, to shout down all those voices in our souls.
angelat0763 on October 20, 2008 at 8:12 AM
Obama’s Secret Campaign Cash: Has $63 Million Flowed from Foreign Sources?
As Barack Obama reaped a stunning $150 million in campaign donations in September, bringing his total to more than $600 million, new questions have arisen about the source of his amazing funding.
By Obama’s own admission, more than half of his contributions have come from small donors giving $200 or less. But unlike John McCain’s campaign, Obama won’t release the names of these donors.
A Newsmax canvass of disclosed Obama campaign donors shows worrisome anomalies, including outright violations of federal election laws.
For example, Obama has numerous donors who have contributed well over the $4,600 federal election limit.
Many of these donors have never been contacted by the Obama campaign to refund the excess amounts to them.
And more than 37,000 Obama donations appear to be conversions of foreign currency.
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/obama_illegal_donations/2008/10/19/141979.html?s=al&promo_code=6D84-1
Keemo on October 20, 2008 at 8:19 AM
George Soros injecting millions of his own money into a campaign is arguably an attempt to exert undue influence and “buy an election”.
Unless you have evidence Obama’s $150 million comes primarily from large single donations are you seriously implying that only government-funded elections are clean? I realize it’s McCain who’s raising the issue, a guy who’s firmly for limiting political speech. He has no problem using taxpayer funds, so long as it’s filtered through the government rather than the free expression of individuals.
Once again, who’s the socialist here?
sanguine4 on October 20, 2008 at 8:32 AM
Watch what ya ask for Dems, you just might get it. Lord help us all.
johnnyU on October 20, 2008 at 8:39 AM
sanguine4 on October 20, 2008 at 8:32 AM
Remove your head from that hole in the sand, and take a good look at what you just said in a forum where the traffic is pretty heavy.
Kookaid drinker!
Keemo on October 20, 2008 at 8:51 AM
Fake ballots= midnight scamming in the back room with said unused ballots. Quota my *ss
johnnyU on October 20, 2008 at 8:57 AM
Senator McCain is hoist on his own petard with McCain-Feingold. While I will be voting for him next month, I don;t feel any sympathy when it involves his fundraising. He burned his bridges to the conservatives too many times, and only Governor Palin as his running mate has given him assitance with his fundraising. Without her, he would be 15 points or more behind the traitor. No crocodile tears here, just fear for my country. Maybe he should have remembered the kind of men his father and grandfather were- I doubt that they would have pulled the same stunts and sponsored the legislation that he did, in the name of “bi-partisanship”.
trainwife1962 on October 20, 2008 at 9:37 AM
IMO the money is a net negative. It belies the mantra about how the economy is so bad, while at the same time raising questions about where it came from. Additionally, I have yet to see anyone buy an election. Kerry outspent Bush two to one, for what?
Vashta.Nerada on October 20, 2008 at 10:22 AM
So, isn’t anyone curious about the sources of these campaign contributions?
I am and I’m sure others are too.
eanax on October 20, 2008 at 10:39 AM
I hope you have some medication that’ll help you cope if McCain doesn’t pull off the win.
eanax on October 20, 2008 at 10:42 AM
And that worked so well in Nov. 2006…
/sarc
eanax on October 20, 2008 at 10:52 AM
Only in the movies…
eanax on October 20, 2008 at 10:53 AM
Agreed.
eanax on October 20, 2008 at 11:10 AM
The obvious question is this: How much of The One’s campaign funds come from Soros?
Vic on October 20, 2008 at 11:24 AM
BO will be #5 on the list. “Sad, but True”
theRealMcCoy on October 20, 2008 at 11:48 AM
About time someone said it.
chiefeditor on October 20, 2008 at 1:40 PM
Not necessary. McCain will win. That’s a fact.
ManlyRash on October 20, 2008 at 1:42 PM
Oh, but it is on our side. It most certainly is.
ManlyRash on October 20, 2008 at 1:43 PM
Actually, it worked very well…many in the Silent Majority stayed home or voted for ‘none of the above.’ That won’t be the case in this election.
McCain will win. Make book on it.
ManlyRash on October 20, 2008 at 1:46 PM
Even if Obama had 150 trillion dollars Mccain will win the election next month. No doubt about it.
LODGE4 on October 20, 2008 at 4:36 PM
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